Even though they couldn’t communicate through language, Aneruowila could see Jiang Ran’s expression and knew she had agreed. A faint look of satisfaction appeared on her face. Just as she was about to suggest that Jiang Ran should start preparing, she noticed the woman slowly turning her head, scanning her up and down with a raised eyebrow.
Aneruowila followed the other woman’s gaze and saw her own Bing Dwen Dwen keychain hanging from the zipper of her coat pocket.
She saw the woman in front of her smile kindly and sweetly. Recognizing that there was someone among them who could speak English, the woman directly said in English, “What’s the fun in just racing? How about we add some stakes?”
Jiang Ran pulled out the keychain she had finally managed to get from Shan Chong through coaxing and deception, and said, “If I lose, this is yours. But if you lose—”
She paused, then continued, “All of your Bing Dwen Dwen keychains come to me.”
After Aneruowila’s group of four heard the translation from their English-speaking companion, they all showed expressions of surprise. The determined faces clearly said: Why should we? Are you robbing us?
…Shan Chong was right—Wang Jiaming had indeed let a bandit in.
Jiang Ran turned around expressionlessly and asked Wang Jiaming, “How do you say ‘the one who makes the first move is the inferior one’ in English?”
“There’s no such ridiculous expression in English,” Wang Jiaming said with a headache. “How old are you? You’re taking a bunch of young girls’ Bing Dwen Dwen keychains.”
“Well, time is tight and the mission is heavy,” Jiang Ran sweetly replied. “Besides, I might not even win. Anything could happen on the racecourse!”
Wang Jiaming stopped trying to stop her.
He listened as this woman used a series of persuasive words, mixing flattery, provocation, and even threats to convince the young girls to agree to her unreasonable conditions.
The decisive factor was probably the last sentence she said. Smiling with a lifted lip, she said to Aneruowila, “I heard you placed fourth in this competition. What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you think that was just luck?”
How could the girl who had come forward to provoke her and remembered her humiliation in Finland tolerate such words?
In a moment of heated impulse, she took off the panda keychain hanging from her zipper—and her friends’ as well… But she wasn’t completely foolish. She proposed that, to avoid the element of luck, they must race three times, and whoever won two rounds first would be the winner.
Jiang Ran readily agreed.
At this time, the other members of the snowboarding coaching team had also taken their places. They sensed something unusual about the atmosphere at the viewing stand but remained confused until Wang Jiaming briefly explained the situation to them.
Everyone happily accepted this unexpected interlude and sat in the first row of the viewing stand.
Jiang Ran picked up her snowboard and prepared to head toward the lift. Wang Jiaming said, “Good luck?”
The woman with long wavy hair smiled at him while tossing her hair back. “Of course. This is the only one I have.”
If she lost due to a bet, the little pups at home would throw a tantrum.
…
Standing steady on the red and blue lanes, Jiang Ran took off the hair elastic from her wrist. As she tied her hair with her teeth, she lifted her eyes to look at Aneruowila standing on the red lane.
Surrounded by teammates, Aneruowila stood in the middle. They were whispering and discussing something intensely. A faint, unusual redness appeared on her pretty little face, looking somewhat nervous…
It was unclear whether they were talking about Jiang Ran, but at this moment, Aneruowila lifted her eyes.
Her gaze unexpectedly collided with Jiang Ran’s open stare. She froze for a moment, instinctively taking a step back, as if startled.
She quickly averted her gaze.
Hmph, little girl.
Jiang Ran’s long eyelashes fluttered, and she couldn’t help but softly laugh, probably still riding the momentum from that moment in Finland when she had bent down to adjust Aneruowila’s collar.
She said, “Are you very nervous? Do you need a few more minutes to calm down?”
Her voice rang out on the mountaintop amidst the wind, sounding abrupt and cold. The whispering girls froze and looked over.
“What are you dawdling for? Translate!” Jiang Ran said with amusement, looking at the black-haired girl who could serve as the translator. “I know the stakes are a bit high, but it’s okay. I heard that if you get up at seven in the morning and queue early, you can still buy new keychains.”
Her words were like pouring oil onto fire.
Aneruowila’s face turned red and then white. She thought the woman’s smiling expression was truly unbearable.
She coldly pulled down her goggles and readjusted her helmet.
Jiang Ran shrugged and placed one hand on the railing.
The surrounding girls scattered away. Halfway down the mountain, Wang Jiaming made a gesture, and Nie Xin nervously leaned half his body out from the fence.
With the timer’s soft “beep,” two figures simultaneously dashed out from the red and blue lanes.
Jiang Ran was always like this—even if she was daydreaming about random things just a second before the race, once she entered the course, she could easily eliminate all distractions.
Nie Xin said she was a naturally gifted competitor.
In her eyes at this moment, there was only the predetermined route and the next gate to avoid.
Her speed was fast, almost keeping pace with Aneruowila from the start, even showing signs of overtaking her.
“She’s really fast, Nie Xin!” Another coach from the coaching team said, slapping his thigh. “Why didn’t you send her to us sooner?”
Nie Xin rolled his eyes. “Do I owe you old bastards anything? I went through so much trouble to recruit her from Harong, kept her hidden for half a year, and just helped our provincial team secure third place in the World Cup before Wang Jiaming snatched her away—”
During their conversation, on the blue lane nearby, Jiang Ran’s figure flashed by.
At that very moment, at the next gate, her figure flickered. With an unnoticeable but quick flip of her board’s edge, she directly overtook Aneruowila, who had been stubbornly tailing her on the adjacent lane!
One of the coaches exclaimed in shock, “Oh my god!”
Wang Jiaming watched for a while and calmly said, “It’s not without flaws. In recreational snowboarding, people often pursue aesthetics, opening their bodies wider and applying more pressure, lowering their center of gravity more. However, sometimes this kind of technique can cause unnecessary wide turns around the gates… If she had maintained the same pressure intensity as just now, she should have pulled away several gates earlier.”
Down below, amidst Wang Jiaming’s drowsy commentary, Jiang Ran had already overtaken Aneruowila by half a body length!
This was a distance that the bronze medalist in the third-place race had never achieved!
At this moment, they had already entered the last two gates. Jiang Ran’s skiing posture remained stable. Her edge cuts were clean and precise, showing absolutely no sign of slackening—
Until she crossed the final finish line!
“What are you blabbering about!” Nie Xin watched helplessly as Jiang Ran crossed the finish line first. “Say something nice! Love and education! We won! Clap!”
He started clapping enthusiastically like a seal.
The other coaches on the viewing stand, startled by his shouting, followed suit. In between, they began discussing how far along the process was for transferring Jiang Ran’s documentation—
Their tone was clearly enthusiastic and impatient.
They were afraid that if they delayed even a moment, the provincial team wouldn’t be willing to let her go, ruining the big plan.
Meanwhile, the provincial team coach was busy clapping. The loud clapping mixed with the frustrated and confused groans from the girls on the mountain, forming the most beautiful symphony in the entire mountainside!
…
Aneruowila furiously ripped off her helmet and slammed it on the ground. It bounced with a “clap” and landed at Jiang Ran’s feet.
Jiang Ran bent down to pick up the helmet, brushed off the snow on it with her hand, and walked to the little girl who was red with anger and muttering something incoherently. She placed the helmet back on her head.
The girl looked stunned, turned her head to look at Jiang Ran with her lips slightly parted.
Her English wasn’t very good, and Jiang Ran guessed she probably couldn’t understand what she was saying. She gave up and simply smiled at her. She took off her gloves and helped the girl in front of her put the helmet back on—
The woman’s hands were warm and soft, kept that way by the habit of applying hand cream in winter. They smelled sweet, just like her.
Aneruowila caught a whiff of a bitter-sweet scent of lemon mixed with citrus. In the cold wind, this fragrance wasn’t jarring at all—it felt warmly approachable, a sweet but not cloying aroma entering her nose.
With a flick of her fingers, Aneruowila instinctively lifted her head along with the force.
She heard a soft “click” as the helmet’s buckle was fastened.
The woman took a couple of steps back, and the warmth from her presence receded accordingly. When she turned to point at the elevator behind her, Aneruowila was still standing there, dazed.
After walking a few steps on her own without hearing any footsteps, Jiang Ran stopped and curiously turned her head. She saw the girl still standing in place, her fists clenched tightly, her small face flushed unnaturally red.
She was just about to ask if the girl still wanted to race.
But the girl lifted her head, glared at her fiercely, and rushed into the elevator with her board, barging through recklessly.
…
The second round didn’t start immediately.
When it came to snowboarding competition, Aneruowila wasn’t just a simple-minded girl who acted on impulse. After reaching the summit and distancing herself from Jiang Ran, she asked her teammate who had recorded the race video for the footage.
She wanted to see how Jiang Ran had suddenly overtaken her at a gate halfway down the mountain, and how the distance had widened afterward.
By this time, it was nearly noon. The wind was strong on the mountain, and the snow wasn’t as good anymore. She noticed that the woman, in pursuit of stability, had pressed her edges very hard at the beginning, just as her teammate had said yesterday—
Her edge angle was already too high, almost exceeding 105 degrees.
In racing, a higher edge angle wasn’t necessarily better.
Aneruowila noticed that the reason she had been overtaken was because the woman had risen slightly at one gate, reducing the edge angle of her board to about 75 degrees. This made her board more flexible, allowing her to take a tighter arc through that turn…
That was where she had been overtaken.
Closing her eyes to think, her mind wasn’t filled with anger as it had been before. When she opened her eyes again, she calmly said to Jiang Ran, “Okay, let’s have the second round now.”
Jiang Ran raised her hand to adjust her goggles and made a “please” gesture.
At the start of the second round, Jiang Ran was somewhat dazed—could it be that she was naturally suited for teaching?
Otherwise, how could Aneruowila suddenly seem different after simply reviewing the race video from earlier?
Her body was more relaxed than in the first round, her edges not as high. Although her speed was slightly slower, her route control became particularly flexible.
Halfway through, at the next two gates, she even showed signs of overtaking Jiang Ran.
But it was only for that brief moment—
Down the mountain, the snow was no longer so thin that the ice shell was exposed. To accelerate, she no longer applied heavy pressure, significantly reducing the edge angle of her board in advance!
This made her suddenly become more nimble and quick!
The effect of the slight adjustments was minimal, but the accumulation of route adjustments gradually added up. Finally, at the third-to-last gate, she pulled ahead by half a body length!
Amidst cheers and gasps from the people on the mountain, she stabilized this half-body advantage and crossed the finish line first!
A narrow victory!
The best-of-three series ended early!
…
Behind her, Nie Xin and others’ cheers drowned out the wind noise in her ears, but Jiang Ran could hear her chest wheezing as if it couldn’t bear the burden, her heartbeat particularly fast.
She was somewhat out of breath, looking back at Aneruowila, who had arrived at the finish line closely behind her not far away. Her face was pale like a sheet of paper, clearly exhausted as well.
Jiang Ran had won, two consecutive rounds.
Counting Finland, this was the third time they had faced off, and Aneruowila had never won once. This defeat was a significant blow to her. Deep down, she knew she was simply no match for this woman in front of her.
Under Jiang Ran’s gaze, she suddenly bit her lower lip hard, tears welling up in her eyes, shame and defeat quickly flooding her mind—
Through her tear-blurred vision, Aneruowila knew Jiang Ran was watching her. She thought, “She must be so pleased with herself right now, right?”
Looking up, their eyes met. To her surprise, the expected smugness and triumph weren’t there. The woman’s face didn’t look too good either.
Without saying another word, she turned and headed to the elevator.
Aneruowila wiped her tears, somewhat hesitating whether to go with her.
As the elevator door was about to close, the woman reached out, stopped one side of the door, and lifted her chin at her, expressionlessly asking, “Coming or not?”
She asked in a concise, icy tone.
…
Aneruowila’s teammates and Jiang Ran’s coaches were all waiting on the viewing stand halfway up the mountain.
During the elevator ride up, Aneruowila couldn’t help but keep glancing at Jiang Ran—
What was wrong with this woman?
Sometimes she seemed very gentle and kind, helping her put on the helmet, not reacting at all to her outbursts.
Other times, she spoke coldly, with an air of arrogance.
She couldn’t figure it out.
At this moment, Nie Xin and others were waiting for Jiang Ran with cheerful expressions. The elevator door opened, and she stepped out first. Nie Xin approached, ready to praise her a bit, but noticed her expression wasn’t as good as it should have been after a win…
In fact, it could be described as somewhat sour.
Nie Xin was taken aback: “Why do you look like that? Did I see wrong? Didn’t you win? Did you miss a gate?”
Jiang Ran gave him a disbelieving look. Of course she didn’t miss a gate. When would she ever make such a mistake?
“Almost lost,” she thought for a moment, then quietly voiced her concerns. “This little girl just watched my race video once, and in the second round, she was already different from the first. Did you notice?”
Sports competitions, even from eight million years ago, originally had the simplest and most honest—and most absurd—purpose: “exchange techniques and progress together.”
But when this simple and unadorned theme was reflected in the 21st century, it was somewhat hard to accept.
In the first round, she had been dragged half a gate behind and rubbed into the ground!
In the second round, it had become a close victory!
If she hadn’t bravely reduced the pressure in advance, risking slipping out and losing control to gain an advantage, she might have already lost this round!
Just thinking about it made her heart race with lingering fear. Jiang Ran glanced at Aneruowila surrounded by her teammates, her discomfort surging uncontrollably, overwhelming her.
Actually, she knew she was being completely unreasonable—
The competition was public. Analyzing her personal characteristics through race videos and making improvements and adjustments was perfectly normal.
In team sports like basketball and football, there were even coaching groups specifically assigned to analyze opponents’ past match videos and team styles!
But Jiang Ran quickly realized that it wasn’t about being unreasonable. It was just that she had felt a bit panicked when she almost got overtaken at the end.
She couldn’t imagine what her mindset would be like in the third round if she had lost, whether she could still perform normally.
…She was holding onto her competitive desire a bit too tightly.
Jiang Ran was somewhat dazed, completely immersed in her complicated and dark thoughts. At this moment, she had no idea what Aneruowila was discussing with her companions.
“I want to race one more time,” Aneruowila said. “I feel like I’m just a little bit away from winning.”
“Wipe your tears first, Vera!” Iden scoffed. “You’re always so arrogant. Crying after losing a race won’t do.”
“Ah, my keychain! Waaah, I lost it!” Another black-haired girl lamented. “It’s all your fault, Vera! You shouldn’t have challenged that Chinese woman. You have to get up early tomorrow to queue up and buy keychains for us!”
Aneruowila thought for a moment and mumbled, “I don’t really think she raced us just for the Bing Dwen Dwen keychains.”
“Why then?” Iden asked.
Aneruowila blushed slightly: “Because at the World Cup in Finland, I might have reacted in a not-so-friendly way toward her country. She might have been really angry about that.”
Iden nodded: “Oh, national pride.”
The black-haired girl said: “Then you deserve it, Vera. Chinese people really care about these things. You should see them on social media—they’re always like that!”
“The Chinese are progressing really fast,” Iden sighed again. “Will the rankings of winter sports powerhouses be reshuffled in the next Winter Olympics?”
Aneruowila turned her head and quickly said something to her English-speaking teammate who served as the translator.
The teammate nodded and walked toward the group nearby—
She had already noticed that the people around Jiang Ran were likely her coaching team, so she directly approached Wang Jiaming and said that Aneruowila hoped for a third round of competition.
Jiang Ran heard her as she spoke and raised her eyebrows.
Wang Jiaming turned to look at Jiang Ran, silently seeking her opinion.
Jiang Ran thought expressionlessly for a moment, then crossed her arms. With one hand, she grabbed the Bing Dwen Dwen from the table at the front of the viewing stand where she had placed it earlier and stuffed it back into her pocket.
Coldly, she said, “Make them hand over the Bing Dwen Dwen first—none of the four can be missing.”
This time, even Wang Jiaming was taken aback.
“You’re really persistent. I thought you were doing this to avenge the humiliation from the World Cup in Finland,” Wang Jiaming said in astonishment.
“…Back then, I already beat her directly. If there was a grudge, it was settled then. What more revenge could there be now?” Jiang Ran said, puzzled. “I’m doing it for the keychain. Otherwise, why would I bother with her? Do you think I’m idle?”
Author’s note:
Ran Sister: For the kindergarten cubs at home crying and making demands, it’s a fierce competition! The effort I’ve put in isn’t any less than Shan Chong’s!
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage